


Higher and Higher

by stilesinwonderland (itsabravenewworld)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-04
Updated: 2014-07-04
Packaged: 2018-02-07 09:01:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1893138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsabravenewworld/pseuds/stilesinwonderland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Stiles,” he hisses dangerously. There’s a support beam holding him up by the crotch but his shoe is caught by a nail and he’s desperately trying to get it free. Stiles can tell Derek  is trying so hard to get out just so he can strangle him, so he stops laughing and puts a finger up.</p><p>“No wait, wait right there, don’t move!” And he races through the doorway and outside.</p><p>-<br/>OR the one in which Stiles chooses a cheap apartment and Derek falls through the floor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Higher and Higher

**Author's Note:**

> This was a fic prompt on tumblr (come check me out, my url is obriensnipples) and instead of being serious I turned it funny (of course). 
> 
> Please leave comments and tell me what you think, and come talk to me on tumblr if you'd like!
> 
> PS title is again from the ELO song "Livin' Thing"

Derek lets Stiles make the choice of an apartment because he knows it’s important to him to find something close to his dad and he was the guilty party in a fight, but when Stiles chooses one on the East side of town, it takes everything in him to not deny him. Especially when they take a drive up to see the one he’s chosen and the door cracks when he opens it.

Their apartment is… well. It’s kind of a dump. Stiles can count the amount of money it will take to fix all of the things in there, and his estimate is well over ten thousand dollars. Of course it had looked much better in the pictures, but it’s obvious that the lighting was different because there’s rotting walls and gross spots everywhere on the paint that you wouldn’t see in a picture. Their appliances are ancient and Stiles is pretty sure the oven hasn’t been used in years.

For a while, they both look around silently with matching horrified grimaces. The carpets are completely  _matted_ with years and years of built up pet hair, and Stiles considers making a dog joke but when he looks at Derek’s disgusted face, he stops himself.

“The ceilings have  _stains_ on them,” Derek complains, kicking over a leftover box from the last tenants. “What were you thinking?”

 

Stiles swipes a hand over inches of dust on an old table. “I was thinking it didn’t look this bad in pictures?” he says, and grins. “It just needs a little bit of love is all!”

“A little bit of  _love_?” Derek says. He’s making choked noises in the back of his throat and his eyebrows are furrowed all the way up his forehead. He points to a floorboard sticking up through the hairy carpet. “This place needs a whole  _foundation._ And it needs furniture and a brand new carpet and the walls need to be ripped out and replaced.”

Stiles sighs with a tired look and Derek starts to feel guilty. Stiles had looked so excited to find an apartment that he liked but now he looks like all of his dreams have been crushed. Derek rubs at Stiles’s arms from behind him and Stiles leans his head onto Derek’s shoulder. “It was one of the cheapest choices,” Stiles tells him in a moody voice.

Derek’s shocked by that. “I told you that the money wasn’t an issue,” he tells Stiles, and Stiles shrugs out of his hold with a frustrated grunt.

“ _No,_ ” he says stubbornly. “I don’t want to have to rely on your money, Derek. I don’t want you to have to do that.”

It makes Derek want to smile, the fact that Stiles has never wanted him for his money and would go to such great lengths to refuse it. “Stiles. I know you wouldn’t do any of this for my money. I can tell when you’re lying.” He shows his fangs just to prove his point. “But I  _have_ the money, so we should spend it when we need to. Which is now.”

Stiles heaves out a put-upon sigh. “No one ever has it easy for their first home. I wouldn’t want to have it easy either, because it feels like I’m cheating or something.” They’re sort of rocking together now and Derek can hear the floorboards creaking dangerously under them.

Derek snorts, and Stiles is staring at him with a deep-set frown so he settles his expression to its normal state. “You don’t need to make things harder on yourself just to feel normal.”

Stiles snuffles and punches him in the arm. “I guess we’ll find somewhere else to live.” Which, well, wasn’t exactly giving in but it was better than what Derek had expected so that’s okay.  

“Deal.”

Derek lets him step through the doorway first and he’s now talking about an apartment he saw on 53rd Street that was just darling (dear God) when the floor groans dangerously underneath him. He can barely process the rotting smell of the floor just under his feet when the sound of splintering wood is closely followed by the floor completely collapsing beneath him and he falls down.

“Oh— Jesus, fuck, Derek?” Stiles calls because he’s already out of the doorway when he hears the crashing sound and he races back into the room. He almost passes out from the sight of Derek, with his upper body stuck above the floor and his feet dangling into the floor below them. “How in the hell—” And then he’s laughing, and Derek’s watching him with the deadliest glare he’s ever seen directed towards him.

“Stiles,” he hisses dangerously. There’s a support beam holding him up by the crotch but his shoe is caught by a nail and he’s desperately trying to get it free. Stiles can tell Derek  is trying so hard to get out just so he can strangle him, so he stops laughing and puts a finger up.

“No wait, wait right there, don’t move!” And he races through the doorway and outside.

Derek yells, “What are you talking about, you idiot,  _I_ can’t _move,”_ but he manages to wrestle his foot free just as he hears Stiles racing back up the stairs. Instead of running to get help, though, Stiles has returned with his phone in his hands and he’s snapping pictures with it with an evil grin.

“Stiles!” Derek roars which just makes Stiles laugh harder. Derek eventually manages to get his other leg free and his ankle gets sliced open as he launches himself from the hole straight onto his two feet. Stiles makes this shrieking noise (a  _manly_ shrieking noise) and isn’t quick enough to escape Derek’s hands that are reaching for him. He grabs Stiles by the waist and, ignoring his frantically wiggling body, sets him down in the open floor so now he’s the one stuck. Derek pulls out his phone as well, snapping a few pictures, grinning as Stiles gives him the finger.

“Are you just going to leave me here?” Stiles complains, crossing his arm like a petulant child. Derek shrugs, considering. He snaps another picture.

“I suppose I could.”

“Seriously though, fuck you,” Stiles grunts, adjusting his legs and trying to kick his way out of the holes and failing miserably. “Fucking dammit—” Stiles falls down a couple of times trying to get out of the hole and eventually moans, “Okay, truce please, my nuts can’t take it anymore.”

Derek reluctantly offers a hand and Stiles takes it, letting Derek pull him straight out of the floor. He smacks at Derek’s arm furiously when he regains his balance enough to do so. “You asshole, I’m not a super wolf and just because it’s my fault you fell cause I chose a shitty apartment—” his words are cut off by Derek kissing him and licking into his mouth slowly. He holds on for the ride and mouths his protests while still holding him close.

“I’ll tell you what,” Derek murmurs as they leave the apartment and head towards his car. “Let my buy the apartment and you can choose the TV we get.”

Stiles’s head snaps towards him, his mouth open wide in a disbelieving grin. “You’re kidding.”

“Any TV you want,” Derek says, smoothly backing up and it’s comforting that Stiles’s enthusiastic yell doesn’t even make him almost crash anymore.

-

“Hey Allison check this out,” Scott calls from his spot over his laptop. She leans over his shoulder and rests her cheek against his. Derek has a post up for the first time since he’s made a facebook, and all it is is a picture of Stiles hanging through a busted floor with his middle finger up in irritation with the caption “the weight of his head made him fall through the floor.” Stiles has commented on it with an angry emoji and a link.

“Look, click on it,” Allison tells him, pointing at the screen.

Stiles’s links to a new photo album up titled “Starting Life” and all of the pictures are of that day.

The first is of Derek in the same position in what looks like the same floor, and Stiles’s caption says “looks like he’s already broken the floor.” He tells himself he’ll call and ask later, but keeps clicking further into the album. There’s another one Stiles has taken of Derek driving, his face relaxed and he’s not really smiling (he never quite does), but it looks like perhaps he’s just stopped smiling at something stupid Stiles has said. Stiles has only a smiley face as the caption. The last one is Derek kissing just under Stiles’s hairline in some kind of restaurant. His arm is around Stiles’s shoulder and eyes are focused on Stiles’s goofy expression directed at the camera.  

“They look really happy,” Allison comments. Scott notices she’s got a tiny smile on her face and he kisses her cheek.

  
“As happy as Derek can look at least,” he says, and likes all of the pictures.


End file.
